Red Hat is a relatively young company as companies go, especially in relation to the behemoths like IBM, Sun, and Microsoft it so frequently comes up against. As such, Red Hat is still learning about how to go about doing business. It's nice to know Red Hat is still humble enough to admit when it's made a mistake, and that's precisely what the company is doing by admitting to a serious misstep with the Fedora project.

Linux became a household word precisely because armies of early adopters and enthusiasts downloaded the operating system freely, and no distribution was more freely adopted than Red Hat Linux. The problem for Red Hat was how to make money on a product it was giving away. Red Hat's ultimate decision was to abandon free Linux, spinning it off as the Fedora project. Red Hat intended to concentrate on its commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) release, and a small team of enthusiasts would continue development of the free Fedora project. And that's where Red Hat says it went off the rails.

“One of the mistakes we made when we launched [RHEL] was we focused so exclusively on this enterprise market that we left this [early-adopter] square uncovered,” said Michael Tiemann, VP of Open Source affairs at Red Hat. Indeed, Red Hat was so eager to push RHEL it pointedly advised enterprise clients not to use Fedora. Fedora, it was claimed, was only for those looking to play with the latest technologies. For staid stability, RHEL was the recommended choice.

“[Red Hat] realized they went a little too far away and now they are back there saying that Fedora is good,” says Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL. Red Hat underestimated the usefulness of Fedora, which has been very adept at integrating new technologies that eventually trickle down to RHEL.

Red Hat intends to change this. Indeed, Fedora has already been responsible for moving intricate new features like SELinux into RHEL much faster than anyone originally anticipated. Red Hat also wants to vastly expand the number of software packages available with Fedora distributions, going from 1,600 packages to as many as 3,000 or 4,000 packages. Red Hat is also re-engaging developers interested in Fedora, and is no longer trying so hard to steer them into RHEL.

Red Hat says it intends to throw considerable weight behind Fedora in the future, with Fedora Core 4 offering PowerPC support. New features and packages, added by Red Hat, will be announced in a program called Fedora Extras.

ERIC'S OPINION
I thought Red Hat's decision to “abandon” free Linux was a mistake back when it was made, but I could certainly understand Red Hat's desire to get out of the business of “selling” a free product. There was a time long ago when Linux distribution vendors thought they could make a living from selling support contracts for free operating systems. That idea has largely failed; most people downloading Linux for free were savvy enough to not need support, and neophytes who actually needed support were often so lost with Linux that Red Hat's support just didn't cut it. If Red Hat wanted to avoid the fate of other free-product companies like Netscape, it had to do something.

But, as Red Hat is now admitting, the company went a bit too far … not that it's affected me too much. Our older Red Hat systems remained Red Hat. Newer systems use Fedora, which I've found to be every bit as stable and reliable as Red Hat's commercial distribution.

The only gripe I have about Fedora is that it sometimes moves too fast. It can be annoying to see entirely new Core versions popping out every three months, and if you're afflicted with the gotta-have-the-latest-version disease as I am, the urge to upgrade all the time is insatiable. But to those who are somewhat stodgier than I, such mercurial development is viewed as a negative.

Red Hat is going to have to strike a very fine balance between RHEL and Fedora if it is to stay in the black but not run off the enthusiasts. I'm liking Fedora the more I use it, so I look forward to seeing what Red Hat is planning.

USER COMMENTS 46 comment(s)

yup(10:34am EST Mon Feb 21 2005)Yeah they need to earn income on their products. It was a good idea to sell redhat linux enterprise and have fedora as a free product. Now what they need is office suit and software development suit released for Enterprise.

There are real nut jobs out there who will like for all softwares to be free.

sun releasing solaris 10 for free was the dumbest thing they ever done. – by bla

red hat(11:03am EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I JUST installed my first Linux OS over the weekend, and it was redhat. It came with openoffice.org bundled in. Very sweet. Grabbed an ip address and I was surfing away.The reason I used it was because I saw a “Teach yourself Red Hat Linux 8 in 24 hours” book for $12, and it came with the OS on two cd's. Very basic book (“this is a partition, here's what FDisk can do, be careful, etc).Hey Eric,nice sentence:But to those who are somewhat stodgier than I, such mercurial development is viewed as a negative.How long did you have to work on that one? Surely that wasn't a first thought?just curious…– by Notsick/Notwell

the rigth way(12:04pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I'm working as a system admin on linux servers since 1 year after a EU financed 8 months long course.The course used Debian because of software available, support from community and stability, and even license issueOf course now if I have to promote a linux platform to small offices I'll promote Debian.For sure if I had to promote it to a bank because of legal responsibility I would choose a Suse or RedHat.So they don't have to fear about the enterprise market, but small officese….definitally the decision to have such an unstable/testing free version…..is making sysadmins moving to Debian – by ice.man

Moving fast(12:36pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)As far as business use is concerned, a new version of Fedora every 6 months is not an issue. The real issue is support gets dropped for old versions very quickly. Yes, Red Hat says that if this is a concern then RHEL is what you want, but then people look at free versions of Debian or SuSE that have longer shelf life… – by JRink

PowerPC(12:40pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)PoerPC support in Core 4? Can't wait to give that a try – by maximusGeek

linux users(12:42pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)windows is a better system for people who are busy living there lives outside a matrix linuxs is for geeks who have nothing else going on so people who dont want to take a class and learn linuxs should stay with windows / windows is easy to install and easyer to understand for people who are busy living. peace but windows rules – by gremlin

Gremlin(1:44pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)Welcome to 1999. That is where you Linux thinking is. Here in the world of 2005 Linux is easy to install. In both cases if you never installed an OS before both will seem hard.

– by Rax

RE: Notsick/Notwell(1:47pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)Actually, that's the way I usually talk. I didn't have to mull over it, it just kind of flowed out. This was done about 12:30AM Monday morning, by the way. – by J. Eric Smith

RE: Rax(2:13pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“Here in the world of 2005 Linux is easy to install.”

I have to admit this is somewhat true, although not the end of the story.

Take a FC3 install right now. A blooming idiot can install it using the defaults. But an install is not the end of the experience. The user has very little idea of how to “run” the machine at this point. Sure, as long as nothing breaks and the defaults suit his or her needs, things can be quite nice. But what if they aren't? In case you haven't noticed, there isn't a tremendous amount of user-friendly documentation available out there for certain things. It's very uneven, but that's because certain FOSS projects give more attention to documentation than others.

I'll give you a very simple example of a minor issue annoying me right now. I have a FC3 box hooked up to a 21″ Dell monitor. I've properly spec'd the monitor in display properties, and the graphics card is capable of driving the display at 1600×1200 @ 85Hz. There's only one problem: X stubbornly insists on running at 60Hz no matter what. I've used ever GUI-based display wizard on the box and it won't correct the issue.

Now, if I want to, I could go and manually edit the X config files, calculating my own refresh rates and so forth. Now, just how reasonable is it to expect a “normal” user to go to such trouble? Even if he wanted to, just how would he know to edit the conf file? How would he even know *where* it is? It's an amazingly simple task: change the refresh rate of my display. Yet Fedora bungles it. I'm not saying this is a flaw in Linux, but to an *end user*, it *is* a flaw in Linux. Perception is everything here. Our hypothetical user could no doubt troll a few newsgroups and figure this out, but *he's not going to do that*. He's going to stick with his 60Hz refresh rate and hate it, and it's going to contribute to a negative feeling with regards to Linux.

My refresh rate issue is but a small example of a myriad number of *little things* that common Linux distros do wrong. Oh, the big stuff works great almost all the time, but we as tech professionals miss the big picture here. To a user, four or five little issues overshadow *most* big advantages. Sure, a big issue like “Windows always crashed and Linux doesn't” would be a *huge* traction point, but this isn't 1999 in the Windows camp, either. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are arguably as stable as any Linux installation (although Windows still is the target of more viruse and worm attacks, but that's not a stability thing, that's a security thing). The bar has been raised, and Linux needs to be polished in its presentation. The kid with the baseball cap and ratty jeans needs to morph into the adult wearing khaki's and a Polo shirt if he wants access to the enterprise end user market. – by J. Eric Smith

Smart Move(2:20pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)Way to go Redhat. – by CD

Good for Redhat(2:21pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I always bought my copies of Redhat 4-7 for the company. I thought it was a good product and that they should be paid for it. The problem was that the price keep going up from $30 to $80 and at the higher prices people tend to go for the free download. They should sell Fedora as a $20 package. It is worth that to me not to have to spend hours downloading it.

That way they can still make some money off the free Linux.

– by Rax

Re:Eric(3:09pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)The same could be said of Windows. I bought a Dell system for my kids, and it came loaded with XP. Every now and again we ge a BSOD because of the Video driver. Dell says there is nothing wrong but at some resolutions the system crashes XP. The answer from Microsoft is just don't use those settings.

No OS is perfect but you will be surprised at what you can live with, Or what you are forced to live with.

– by Rax

Rax(3:37pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I am wondering, out of curiosity, how often do you get the BSOD?

I have not had one of those since around mid 2000, and I was using Win2000 at the time. Since using XP (clean install on same machine that had 2000) it may have had a hard time with a couple driver issues and freeware/shareware hicups, but no BSOD. Now, with a new machine that came with XP installed, I have had only the occasional driver issue when trying a new freeware video dubbing program and the like.

I am honestly at a loss as to why I still read a lot of people getting the BSOD. Am I wrong? Am I just more conservative with my computer than most? I am not sure, but I doubt it.

How many of you reading this have had BSOD in the past year or so? How many since running XP (assuming you run XP)? – by boogaboo

Re: boogaboo(3:42pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)When I got my latest Dell Laptop from my company, it came pre-config with XP and all the company standard apps. I got 4 BSOD in the fist 5 days I had it. I had not even installed any apps yet so they service center couldn't blam it on me. Turned out it was pre-config to go into “sleep mode” When it does that, it crashes and I get a BSOD. The fix… turn off sleep mode. I got one a couple months later but I forget what I was doing at the time. – by maximusGeek

maximusGeek(3:50pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)Hmm, do you think that first set of BSODs were really a result of DELL's improper settings, or the OS itself? – by boogaboo

Re: boogaboo(3:57pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)Well, I lean more twards the OS. Why would it have a feature that you can turn on and off, if it doesnt work? Could be some kind of driver issue with the Dell. I would think that those kind of issues would be resolved with just a major distributor. We are not talking about obscure hardware or a very application specific setting – by maximusGeek

once(4:16pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I've been using XP for over 2 years, and in that time i've only had one BSOD, and that was my fault for accidently ejecting a CD while it was installing a program.

Sure, the computer has frozen a few times, thats because i was pushing it hard and then decided to load another program, cpu thrashing occurs, OS goes slow, then ka-put.

XP is a stable OS, so long as you don't push too hard. i've even had the same problem when using solaris 9 on ultrasparc 10's.

No OS or machine is perfect. – by Katana

RE: Rax(4:18pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“The same could be said of Windows.”

Very true, but now you're putting Linux on the same level as Windows with respect to questionable functionality of minor things. I've been saying for years that both Linux and Windows are far from perfect, that both suffer from nearly identical minor flaws, and that both routinely suffer from bugs, exploits, and so forth. You have fought me tooth and nail every time I've tried to draw such comparisons, to the point of ignoring facts and statistics and citing your own half-truths to support your unsupportable argument that Linux is somehow above it all. I'm glad to know you've *finally* joined me in reality and admitted that Linux and Windows are both similarly flawed, but that both vendors work at least somewhat diligently to resolve those flaws. – by J. Eric Smith

Re: Eric(4:24pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I think you have a good point, but I think there is more of a perception that Linux is 'harder' behind the GUI. To use your refresh rate example, suppose you had the same problem in Windows and the fix was editing a registry setting? Again, the average user is not going to be comfortable doing that, no matter how routine it is to a geek.

I think it boils down to more of a familiarity issue than anything else when it comes to tweaking. – by JRink

Re:boogaboo(4:25pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I was thinking it was a Dell problem. It was a shock to see it after running only a few days. I would think Dell of all the companies would have this worked out.

On the other side if this had happened to a Linux system we would heard a lot of comments like “Linux is crap”, when it happens to Windows I get alot of defenders saying I have run XP for 2 years with no BSOD.

No OS seems to run correctly on all the hardware out there, and not everyone writes good drivers.

– by rax

Re: boogaboo(4:26pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I had a biweekly BSOD with Windows XP with my All In One Radeon Card. After a dozen monthly upgrades, ATI finally fixed the annoying BSOD.

The original Windows XP will crash during my installation. The solution is to go into SAFE MODE with networking and download the ATI Radeon patch from Microsoft. Does a newbie know how to do that? – by My BSOD WinXP

Re Eric(4:37pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“You have fought me tooth and nail every time I've tried to draw such comparisons, to the point of ignoring facts and statistics and citing your own half-truths to support your unsupportable argument that Linux is somehow above it all. I'm glad to know you've *finally* joined me “

Not True, For years you have been saying that Linux is not ready for prime time and I said in the server market it was. When you were shown to be in error about the server end, you started talking about the desktop side.

If you go back and look at my old post you will see that my main problem with Windows was that it crushed innovation. Linux by it's existants has made Windows a better product. ISP's were not willing to put up with paying for a system that crashed daily when they could get one for free that did not.

In the server area I never said Linux was perfect back then. I just said for most peoples needs it was better than Windows.

– by Rax

Challenge to Windows Fanboys(4:41pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I have no trouble moving or copying large files from one partition to another partition on Windows XP. When I move or copy a large file (~400 MB) from the hard disk to a 1 GB flash memory (SD or CF) through USB, Windows Explorer crashes. Would posting a crash log help solve my problem? It takes down many running Windows XP applications, many do not recover when Windows XP comes back up. – by WinXP explorer crash

RE: JRink(4:43pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“Again, the average user is not going to be comfortable doing that, no matter how routine it is to a geek.”

Very true. However, I've been using Windows since version 3.0, and I can honestly say that things like changing refresh rates have never, ever been mysterious. I can think of other things that might've required registry editing, but all of them were much more complex in nature and very unlikely to happen during common usage.

Which is my whole point here. Linux works great when it works great, but when it breaks, you have to *know* what you're doing to fix it. With a Windows user, it's very likely he or she could prevail upon pretty much anyone and find someone familiar with Windows. Not so with Linux. CompUSA, Microcenter, and other computer superstores really don't know much of anything about it, and these are the most likely avenues neophytes are likely to try and use to get issues resolved. Remember, you and I know about newsgroups, mailing lists, and so forth, but we are in the minority.

This whole thing, though, points to one of my longstanding gripes about Linux and FOSS in general, namely the uneven documentation and online help functions. Some things are fantastically documented but obviously written by and aimed at developers — no use to a neophyte. Some are documented hideously — no use to a neophyte. Some are documented *incorrectly* — worse than nothing at all!

As I said above, Linux doesn't need massive changes to make it better, but it *does* need a massive overhaul in the “attention to detail” department with respect to functions the user is likely to brush up against. Microsoft would've caught any number of these failings in its extensive usability labs, but FOSS has no such construct — or at least no organized one. Of course, any number of Microsoft security headaches would've been caught immediately by the average Linux developer, but (as I've said before) Microsoft has consciously made a decision to push features over security. Given their vast sales and profits to date, and given Linux's poor market penetration outside the server room *despite* the fact that it's free, it's hard to argue with their philosophy. I may not *like* it, but I can't argue with it from a business perspective. – by J. Eric Smith

Challenge to Windows Fanboys(4:46pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I forgot to mention that I am using USB 1.1 and moving and copying large files using command lines in Windows XP works fine. – by WinXP explorer crash

RE: Rax(5:03pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“Not True, For years you have been saying that Linux is not ready for prime time and I said in the server market it was.”

If that's what you've been thinking then you're wrong. I use Linux in the server area quite a bit, and we've been using it for some time. I've been messing around with Linux since the 1.2 kernel long, long ago. It performs some server functions far better or cheaper than Windows can. In others, Windows is better. It depends heavily on what exists to begin with, as all-Windows shops have less to gain with mixed Linux/Windows deployments due to interoperability issues. All-Linux shops similarly have a poor value proposition converting to mixed Lin/Win deployments. The best benefits of functionality, security, and maintainability come from more homogenous environments, be they FOSS or commercial.

“If you go back and look at my old post you will see that my main problem with Windows was that it crushed innovation.”

I read that, then I read this…

“Linux by it's existants has made Windows a better product.”

These two statements mutually contradict one another, since Linux has been developed more or less right alongside Windows. If Linux was “innovated” during the reign of Microsoft, how then could Microsoft be stifling innovation? What you're really saying here is you don't like how Microsoft has become such a *controlling* factor today, and in that I agree with you. However, unlike you, I recognize that a “benevolent dictatorship” model *can* have advantages over the “dueling superpowers” model.

Back in the days before Windows 3.11, DOS apps were all over the place. None of them could exchange info with one another. You had to manually set IRQ's, DMA channels, I/O port ranges. Video drivers for games were haphazardly implemented. Video acceleration was a joke. Multitasking was non-existent.

Today, we have PC's that more or less configure themselves. Drivers are fairly standardized, as you'd have a near impossible time trying to find a video card that doesn't come with a Windows driver. Our applications can share information with one another fairly easily. And it's rare to need to go to the command line anymore unless you're a system administrator. Only a fool would argue that we're not better off today than we were ten years ago, even though the problems we face today are different than the problems we faced back then.

Microsoft took a fractured market and, for better or worse, molded it into what we have today: a stable, 32-bit (soon to be 64!), multitasking, multithreaded platform for serious business and fantastic gaming. Like it or not, there is *one* standard everyone *must* write to in order to reach 90% of the end-user computing market. The days of vendor free-for-alls is over, and good riddance to it. Contrast this with Linux, where developers can't even agree on what window manager to write for, or whether KDE or Gnome is best. Hell, you can barely get fully-functional video drivers for X from ATI and nVidia, and even when you do, they're almost always a few revs behind their Windows counterparts.

What Linux *needs* is a unifying standard for all developers to rally behind, but I'm of the opinion it will never happen. Why? Linux developers are too independent. They *like* being fractured. They *like* doing things their own way and to hell with conformity. But conformity is what the corporate market craves, and if Linux wants to head in that direction, it's going to *have* to become more like Microsoft. Heretical to you, I know, but it's the truth. – by J. Eric Smith

My BSOD WinXP(5:20pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)This is not an XP fault..but Radeon's fault (bad driver). As I've pointed out in the past, I've had several Linux distros crap out on me due to drivers.

Can I blame the OS…not really its really my fault for trying to use hardware with an unsupported OS. (Though I do blame the hardware manufacturers for being shortsighted).

In your case, Radeon bungled up big time by releasing a bad driver for an OS they *DO* support – by xyz

Re Eric(6:49pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)You read but you never understand

1. “If you go back and look at my old post you will see that my main problem with Windows was that it crushed innovation.”

This is correct where is Netscape today. I have a problem with Microsoft not being fair to it's vendors and third party developers. There is a conflict of interest when you make the operating system and product for the OS. I know that many companies walk the line but Microsoft has crossed it too many times in the sake of making money.

In contrast Linux is more of a fair playing field for the developer because no company owns the OS out right.

“Linux by it's existants has made Windows a better product.”

Here we see that competition is a good thing. Win3.5.1 was trash were as Redhat 4 was very stable. If you ever worked with 351 you are luck to have any hair left. NT40 was better but still was not stable enough for some apps to run. Then there was that rebooting for every little app you add and if you corrupt the registry forget about it.

Windows2000/XP today is 100% better than back then because of the Linux threat. Before that Microsoft was saying a PC OS could not be any better than what they shipped.

I remember going to help a small office in the 90's and the only way they could keep the Windows App running was to reboot the system 3 times a day.

Today thing are better thanks to the competition.

– by Rax

Re Eric(7:01pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)” If Linux was “innovated” during the reign of Microsoft, how then could Microsoft be stifling innovation? “

I can't believe you have the nerve to ask this question. All the bad mouthing and phony reports that Microsoft has given Linux in the past 8 years. No one can prove it but we all know that SCO is Microsoft's Lap dog. Remember “WE HAVE THE WAY OUT” the Microsoft web site that was there to help people get off of UNIX and on to Windows. I believe that web site was run on a UNIX server.

At every turn Microsoft is trying to crush the innovation that is called Linux and yet it continues to grow.

Re: Eric(9:43pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“Microsoft took a fractured market and, for better or worse, molded it into what we have today: a stable, 32-bit (soon to be 64!), multitasking, multithreaded platform for serious business and fantastic gaming.”Linux was 64 bit way before Windows. There was Linux for Itanium, Opteron and Athlon 64 even for the prototype phase of those 64 chips.Fantastic Gaming…give me a break. Microsoft does not even sell joysticks and steering wheels for the PCs anymore. The games for the console games outnumber PC games.“Contrast this with Linux, where developers can't even agree on what window manager to write for, or whether KDE or Gnome is best.”Who cares? With the currently libraries KDE works under Gnome and visa versa. Did you notice a program during your shoddy review of Fedora for Redhat and Fedora called “Bluecurve” since Redhat 8? It allows KDE and Gnome to cooperate better under Redhat/Fedora than ever before. Also Novell bought Ximian (Gnome) and is merging with Suse (favoring KDE).“They *like* doing things their own way and to hell with conformity. But conformity is what the corporate market craves, and if Linux wants to head in that direction,” It is called United Linux.

Talking about Linux developers: Linux is now the top choice of embedded development. The latest embedded market research data from Venture Development Corp. shows that Linux is now firmly in first place as the operating system of choice for smart gadgets and embedded systems. – by embedded guy

J. Eric Smith(10:10pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)“If Linux was “innovated” during the reign of Microsoft, how then could Microsoft be stifling innovation?”Of course linux can innovate and Microsoft can stagnate. Why is this not possible? Just in your mind?

“Back in the days before Windows 3.11, DOS apps were all over the place. None of them could exchange info with one another. You had to manually set IRQ's, DMA channels, I/O port ranges. Video drivers for games were haphazardly implemented. Video acceleration was a joke. Multitasking was non-existent.”Not true. We used PCTools which had a db, wp, ACT, with a hex editor that data could be exchanged in it. We used carousel that allowed multi-tasking. You HAD to have a video accelerator to use AutoCAD.

“However, unlike you, I recognize that a “benevolent dictatorship” model *can* have advantages over the “dueling superpowers” model.”With $200B in damages done due to exploits per year, more like “destructive dictatorship”.

“Today, we have PC's that more or less configure themselves.”If you mean linux, I agree, but the last HP PC I installed XP on needed new NIC, graphics and sound drivers. Where as the damn small linux distro found and installed everything on the PC from the CD.

“Like it or not, there is *one* standard everyone *must* write to in order to reach 90% of the end-user computing market. The days of vendor free-for-alls is over, and good riddance to it.”You are saying that Microsoft destroyed 90% of the market, and there will never be a free market system again in the IT industry?

“But conformity is what the corporate market craves, and if Linux wants to head in that direction, it's going to *have* to become more like Microsoft. Heretical to you, I know, but it's the truth.”Not true. Microsoft makes many different versions of it’s OS. Your point is: Microsoft anti-linux talking points are the only choice. Linux is better because of it's differences from MS OS. – by sys op

Re: PowerPC(10:40pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)maximusGeek wrote“PoerPC support in Core 4? Can't wait to give that a try.”Try Yellow Dog Linux. It is based on Fedora Core 3 and runs on Power PC.I bought my Xserve way too early and ran into too many problems with Mac OS X, that were eventually solved. Yellow Dog Linux saved the day with my early Xserve. – by Xserve user

re: linux world week(11:10pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I like linux so I hope you are right. It would be wonderful if it could actually be seriously considered as a mainstream product…

But I also like Microsoft because I get paid very well to fix it. Truth be told, I hope they never completely fix everything. I would be out of a job…. – by longliveBeOS :)

Re: longliveBeOS(11:14pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)It looks like BeOS is going to die with the new temporary version of Palm OS. The next Palm OS will be based on Linux. – by BeOS back temporily

Dose of Reality(11:30pm EST Mon Feb 21 2005)I think this Linux/Microsoft war is great. I make money supporting them both. In any war, the only true winners are those who learn to play, and therefore, invest in both sides. Personally I don’t care who wins, as long as I keep making money….

Granted, I make more money supporting Microsoft products but in all honestly I haven’t efficiently marketed my *nix skills. Never really had a reason. I make a ton off Microsoft users.

Linux Zealots follow Linux, Microsoft Zealots follow Microsoft. I will follow whatever feeds my family. Just in case you wondering, on my personal computer, I run FreeBSD.– by longliveBeOS

BSOD, maybe I am just lucky(12:17am EST Tue Feb 22 2005)I have had a great experience with XP in regard to stability and security. Then again, I always keep my antivirus up to date (not hard to do, I just let the automatic update work) and I use firewall software, and practice safe computing (ok, no jokes ) ). I know that most people, who most likely are not the type to frequent this site, do not practice safe computing, but why are you guys having such a hard time? Did I just luck out with hardware that used well made drivers? – by boogaboo

RE: Rax(10:48am EST Tue Feb 22 2005)“I can't believe you have the nerve to ask this question. All the bad mouthing and phony reports that Microsoft has given Linux in the past 8 years.”

And yet even with all that “bad mouthing,” Linux/Apache has become the dominant webserver if you consider both commercial and non-commercial sites. What do you expect? For Microsoft to say something like “hey, our competition's products are great”? It's called business, Rax, something you appear to have little experience with. In business, you emphasize your competition's faults and minimize your own. If you're going to cry about it, perhaps you should stay home and not go out to play with the big kids.

As for where is Netscape, Netscape deserves its current place in history. After a wonderful 3.x browser, 4.x was a disaster. Netscape rested on its laurels for too long and underestimated the threat Microsoft posed. Novell did the same thing and look at them now. I'm not about to fault Microsoft for displacing anyone too slow or too stupid to out-innovate Microsoft, and when Microsoft is outfoxed I'm going to cheer for whoever does that as well. I don't *care* who's on top of the heap so long as they're still fighting to stay there. Microsoft's almost forgotten what it's like to fight, but I think it could make a quick re-education if needed.

As for the rest of your posts, it just re-inforces my previous conclusions about you. You're a dreamer, an idealist, loosely rooted in reality. You want things to be a certain way simply because you dislike Microsoft. You are unwilling to accept the fact that sometimes the “best” horse does not win the race, and you're utterly unaware of the needs of common, non-technical users. I would imagine you've never been in a management position and never been faced with difficult decisions regarding the fate of entire enterprises. Above all, you're just too involved in this whole thing, too emotional about it to make any practical, pragmatic decision.

But cheer up. You're probably young and inexperienced, and one day you'll grow up and see things as they really are instead of how you want them to be. *Then*, and only then, can you start to change things. As long as you persist in your unreality, you're not going to make much progress. – by J. Eric Smith

Red Hat says it will increase commitment to Fedora(1:30pm EST Tue Feb 22 2005)“It's called business, Rax, something you appear to have little experience with.”The business of lying and cheating.“I'm not about to fault Microsoft for displacing anyone too slow or too stupid to out-innovate Microsoft, and when Microsoft is outfoxed I'm going to cheer for whoever does that as well.”Linux is doing that right now.“and one day you'll grow up and see things as they really are instead of how you want them to be. *Then*, and only then, can you start to change things. As long as you persist in your unreality, you're not going to make much progress.”You mean: as YOU believe. Linux is CHANGE. You can't face the reality of the market shift and the huge amount of progress the open source movement has made in the last 4 years.I don't see “Red Hat says it will increase commitment to Fedora” anywhere in your post. – by Keanu

RE: Keanu(2:56pm EST Tue Feb 22 2005)Who let you out of the Matrix?

Despite your protestations, it's not as *I* believe, it's what the *market* believes that matters. Microsoft posted it's most profitable quarter ever just recently. Doesn't sound like a company about to go under, now, does it?

And don't get all holier than thou with this “Linux is CHANGE” concept. What a load of total crap. Linux may change *some* things, but quite frankly, Linux is far too small to change *lots* of things. Hell, Microsoft is too small when you look at it that way, and it controls 90% of the market. But businesses will still expect to turn a profit, lawyers will still expect indemnity clauses, and users will want to have everything they have now — and more — whether they need it or not. Linux isn't going to “CHANGE” any of that. No, quite the opposite: Linux itself will have to change to better fit the needs of users, I.T. departments, and home consumers.

Keep on denying this all you want. The longer you persist in such fantasy, the longer it will take for Linux to mature to meet the needs of the non-enthusiast market. You're hurting no one but yourself, but you sure seem to be having fun doing it. – by J. Eric Smith

If you're too dense to read exactly *what* Red Hat is going to do and then extrapolate that into the concept of “Red Hat is increasing its commitment to Fedora,” you're dumber than I first took you for…which is pretty amazing, because I took you for a total fool to begin with. – by J. Eric Smith

Lying? Well, then, why don't you file a fraud case against Microsoft? Or perhaps a “misleading advertising” case? You seem to have ironclad evidence in *your* mind of “lying and cheating,” so why don't you put your lawsuit where your mouth is? I hear Microsoft has a load of cash in the bank. Why not cash in on your mind-boggling evidence of “lying and cheating”?

Or, is it more probable that Microsoft isn't “lying and cheating” as you put it, it's just playing hardball business? Yep, I think that's it.

Would you like some cheese with that whine, Mr. Anderson? – by J. Eric Smith

You post 8 time (some long) and the only thime you used (3:31pm EST Tue Feb 22 2005)Red Hat was the time you defended using it, you retard.You're just to stupid to learn linux.Microsoft has settled over 200 case of IP theft. You're just to big an asshole to admit it.Tell your stories to your kids as you beat them tonight.– by your wifes stud

RE: your wifes stud(4:51pm EST Tue Mar 01 2005)I tell you, there is nothing like being able to glance at a post and tell that it was done by a moron just from the glaring gramatical errors.

Tsk. If you're gonna flame someone, make it easy for them to understand what you are trying to say. – by your wife